No Make Up Home Tour

This post is part of an online home tour! We’re all getting real and taking the make up off our normally put together homes. Visit the other blogs participating in the tour and be sure to follow everyone on Instagram.

This house is very much a story of upstairs and downstairs. Normally, you see the house and us at our best on social media. Today is truth time – it’s time to take off the make up.

Some days I’m not sure which is stronger: my desire to fix this house or my desire to say f*ck it and move back to NYC. Easy seems so good some days. But then I see something that’s easy and my head explodes from the level of sheer boredom that could engulf my soul. I don’t do well with boring. I grew up in military housing that was all the same shade of dank off white. I love the element of surprise and unexpectedness – Stony Ford fills that for me.

I’m a typical type-A perfectionist. I have ideas. So. Many. Ideas. I know what looks good and I know what I want, but Stony Ford does what Stony Ford wants. Maybe there is something the house is teaching me. To be less of a control freak. To care less about details. This house shows it’s age gracefully, but then there are parts of it that look flat out run down. Paint fixes a lot of things. $20,000 dropped into electrical work would also fix a lot of things.

When we bought this place our family warned us it would be a money pit. They were right. Complete money pit. Everyone views money differently and how you spend it on your home is ultimately the most personal. So, we keep feeding the beast. Maybe one day she’ll be full. And completely satisfied. I’d rather feed this beast and work my ass off than give in to the blandness of the expected. The backyard water feature. Open floor plans. White paint. Beige. Basic.

The work is dirty and at the end of it, its just over. I often wonder if the day will come where I won’t have the desire to jump into the next project and get this house to where it needs to be. It will just be okay where it’s at. I can plug in a blow dryer in the bathrooms. Not work at a computer sitting in the middle of the hallway. Take a shower on the second floor.

Eleanor

Marian@CMShawStudios

Danielle

October 19, 2017

You guys have undertaken quite a challenge but your home is beautiful (even without the makeup). I LOVE old houses but they are definitely money pits. Growing up my parents restored a 1940s Cape in Andover and a Colonial Mansion in Woburn – they turned it into a restaurant and it was such a mess. Pipes had burst. My love for old homes runs deep. We now live in a 1920s home so much money has been spent on things you don’t notice like new ceilings, a main beam etc. I believe you can’t quite find the character in newer homes even though they are less work. LOVE your blog. xx

Natasha

Fahnestock House

October 24, 2017

I just found you on Instagram and everything you said here resonates with me. We’re on year 9 now of pouring all the money/time/life into this giant beautiful thing. We are approaching the end, with only a few rooms needing finished and the whole exterior. No small task, that exterior. The middle years were the worst. Monthly emotional breakdowns. but one foot in front of the other and we’re doing it. People thought we were crazy. We kind of were. Who raises a family in a giant money pit fixer upper that is outrageously expensive to heat? But one thing we are not is boring. And I know the minute we are finished with this place we will be looking around for another project – maybe not quite so big, but something new all the same. Heck, we’ve already been looking around. :)Nothing gives us more life than dreaming and restoration. Cheers!

Beverly

May 2, 2018

Please get a show on hgtv. I so enjoyed watching your guest bedroom transformation and I forgot how interestingly informative you both are until I just watched the video. That room is absolutely Gorgeous. The raw bones of your home have so much potential and I can’t wait to see how you turn every room into a gem. It’s so nice to see true design inspiration rather than today’s trend of white walls with black/blue/gold accents. Thank you.